Assessment

As Routman states, “Assessment must promote learning, not just measure it” (p. 559). He mentions how students should learn to self assess their work and create portfolios of works they are proud of. In theory this is great when children can complete assignments that they deem as satisfactory. If every student was a perfect child with a desire to learn it would be easy to assess. However, there are some cases where a child may not be proud of anything they do or not care about school. Teachers need to take into consideration that students may think everything they do is pointless or on the other hand they may think everything they do is perfect when it is not.
I feel assessment tools are a sound way to have evidence of your reasoning. However, many parents may try to contradict you. They may feel they were wrongly assessed and that the teacher is biased of the child. After assessing children in pre-k for two years, I have realized that it is hard to tell a parent that their child is not ready for kindergarten. No parent wants to see or hear that their child is not up educational expectations.
Assessment is important in order to monitor student development. It helps a teacher have on record a student progress. A teacher should measure a child’s ability and/or shortcomings. The problem comes when you have a child who is behind in their abilities and parents who do not care. I have a child in my class who needed improvement in many areas and the mother never came to meet me or review the assessment. When I schedule meetings, she tried to send the nanny or have me just send home paperwork. It made me feel, as a teacher, that I did all this work for nothing. Yes I have a file and can show future teachers the child’s abilities, but its time consuming. Especially at such an early age, like pre-k, the standards are pushing them so hard to learn complex things early on. Some children I feel just need more time to grasp concepts while standards make it seem like the child is incapable. Assessment is something that every teacher needs to do and should do efficiently to have proof of readiness. Assessments also help a teacher learn about their teaching. Maybe the children are not understanding something because of they way you teach the material. Assessment can lead to changes they way you teach so you can improve a student’s ability.